8 DOs and DON’Ts for Writing a Holiday Letter (Page 2)

Some letter writing dos and don’ts

Laverty offers a series of suggestions for how to appropriately address sensitive caregiving topics in a holiday letter:
1. Do: discuss your caregiving responsibilities. While it’s important to realize that you are more than just a caregiver, it’s equally as important to acknowledge the valuable role you play in safeguarding your loved one’s health and wellbeing. As long as you feel comfortable talking about the caregiving aspects of your life, don’t hesitate to include them in your letter.

2. Don’t: engage in a gripe session. According to Laverty it’s essential to avoid using a holiday letter to lash out at those who may have been less than supportive of your caregiving. “This is not the time to try and make people feel guilty for not being there for you,” she says. This doesn’t mean you have to make caregiving sound like a breeze. Laverty offers the following prompt to get you started: “As many of you know, I’ve been my ________ (fill in the blank) caregiver for the past ____ (fill in the blank) and it hasn’t been easy. But the good news is that I’ve learned a lot about ______ (fill in the blank) and about myself. If you ever become a caregiver, I’ll be able to help you out with some interesting insights. Truthfully, some days are easy. Others are more difficult and some days, I’d rather forget.”

3. Do: talk about how your loved one is doing. Friends and family—especially those who don’t communicate with you very often—will appreciate being updated on how a loved one is faring.

4. Don’t: go into the gory details. Again, toeing the line between being honest and sharing too much information can be challenging. Because you are the one on the front lines, dealing with your loved one’s health issue on a daily basis, it can be hard to take a step back and figure out what to tell and what to leave out. Laverty suggests keeping things simple: “____ (fill in the blank) continues to struggle with his/her ______ (fill in the blank) and that probably won’t change (if the condition is chronic). If you are reading my letter and you know my ____ (fill in the blank), I can tell you that he would love to hear from you.” If you want to give family and friends an easy-to-understand update on your loved one’s overall condition (i.e. mood, memory, eating, sleeping, finances, etc.), you may want to consider filling out and including an AgingCare.com Care Report in your letter.

5. Do: Send your letter to family and friends. The main thing to consider when figuring out whom to send your holiday letter to: Would you enjoy reading a holiday letter from them? If the answer is yes, then they’d probably be a good addition to your mailing list.

6. Don’t: include everyone. When it comes to holiday updates, close friends and family members should make up the bulk of your audience.

7. Do: reach out. One great thing about sending out a holiday letter is that it can help you reconnect with people you may have fallen out of touch with. It can also provide you with the perfect entrée to casually ask for help or support. Laverty suggests sending a personal note along with your letter to certain people, saying that you’d like to get together and catch up over a cup of coffee.

8. Don’t: assign blame. While it may be tempting to do so, a holiday letter is not the appropriate place to engage in a gripe session. If it helps, you may want to go to an online forum or caregiver support group to vent before sitting down to write your letter. As Laverty says, “If there is bad blood between family members, a holiday letter is not the place to express yourself.”

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By Anne-Marie Botek, AgingCare.com Editor

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Patricia H.

5:26PM PST on Dec 21, 2012

thanks for sharing

December 21
send a green star

Aud N.

3:41AM PST on Dec 9, 2012

thanks

December 9
send a green star

John L.

9:48AM PST on Dec 7, 2012

To Andrew H. - beautifully said.....if only more people would become conscious of their accusations, judgements and criticisms of others, they might see a reflection of themselves in other's shortcomings, and realize that we all suffer from what is appropriately termed "the human condition.". Thanks Andrew.

Joanna M. - I had a good belly laugh....thank you for making my day. :-)

December 7
send a green star

Marianne G.

11:06AM PST on Dec 5, 2012

Thanks for sharing.

December 5
send a green star

Lynn D.

3:35AM PST on Dec 5, 2012

Thanks, now if the LETTER writers would read this - could make for a happier world! (They should also use their spell checkers, nothing like getting a letter full of mis-spelled words!) Actually, personally I don't care for this type of letter AT ALL and just toss them out without reading them, a hand written note at the bottom of the card is fine with me!

Aditya n.

1:35AM PST on Dec 5, 2012

thanks)

Tanya W.

1:32AM PST on Dec 5, 2012

Remember to personalise each letter so that the recipient does not feel like a number on a long list!!

Joanna M.

11:16AM PST on Dec 4, 2012

As a child, I vividly recall our family receiving holiday letters from a distant elderly aunt I had never met in my life. She would give us a month-by-month recap of her family's accomplishments - they were typically things along the lines of "Then in June, I moseyed over to the White House to pick up my Nobel Prize." Even her baby grandchildren were The Most Amazing Children on Earth - she'd write things like "Even though little Johnny was just born last month (in the quickest and easiest labor the hospital staff had ever seen) he's already walking and talking in complete sentences." It was, needless to say, a complete joke.